BN Pleco inside my FX5

[jabo01]

Today when I was cleaning my FX5 I took the lid of and heard a weird noise and looked down and there was one of my BN Plecos on the concrete. I am not sure if it was in the out let or inside the filter itself but man this was strange. The outlet is the outptu of the pump so I dont thinnk it got past that and the inlet has a strainer I dont think this guy could get past as he or she is almost 3.5 inchs long. I have 5 BN Plecos in this tank but rarely see 2 at a time so its not like I noticed one missing.

Good news I scooped it up and got it back in the tank pronto and it has been like 6 hrs and it is still alive and kicking. This was just to strange to keep to myself.

[jm1212]

weird...i would not put it past the fish to have swam up the output though.

[pinkertd]

They have been known to go into strange places, perhaps even seeking out a place to spawn.

[toddnbecka]

Every time I pull the huge chunk of wood out of one of my 75's I have to pick a BN off the floor. I always put smaller pieces of wood on plastic trays for the same reason. Seems like it's impossible to strip down a tank for cleaning or to catch fish w/out a pleco hitching a ride on something.
As long as they stay wet they're fine. I've found them more than an hour later, still alive and unharmed. The only ones I've lost were the couple that swam up the outflow from hob filters and landed on the glass top on the return trip.

[revlemmon]

When I had my 10 gallon tank years ago, I would find my pleco inside the HOB filter every night. Never did figure out what was so interesting in there.